Hitdbeach
Registered
I post this in the hopes it helps someone new. This happened a while ago and I am still embarrassed by it today.
We were shore diving in Hawaii. A site I had dove multiple times before with a DM. My buddy had not dove there before, and he was a less experienced diver than me. I think I had 50 something dives at the time. When we arrived, the weather was not the greatest. A little storm had blown in bringing rain and some chop. We stood and looked over the site and didn't feel great about conditions, but as it was the last opportunity to dive during this vacation, we decided to go ahead. 1st mistake. We entered the water planning on a backwards c pattern roughly following the coast line. The same thing I had done multiple times with a local DM. The water here is shallow, 30 ft max, most at about 20ft. We'd go out to the end of the c and look around for a while till one of us hit 1500 psi then return. As I was familiar with the terrain, I didn't set my compass. 2nd mistake. So out we go, dive was eehh. With the chop that had kicked up and no sun, visibility was not the best. But we carried on. Third mistake. So now my buddy signals he's at 1500 so we start the return. We swim on for a while and things are not looking familiar anymore, the visibility hampering things. I signal to him that we'll go up and look around. I'm now at 1500 and he's nearing 900. When we surface we get a little surprise....we're a full par 4 maybe 5 off shore and now the weather has turned really chitty. Driving rain and heavy chop. At this point my buddy starts to panic, his legs start cramping and says he can't swim back in. I make sure he's filled his bc and talk him off the ledge a bit. I figured we swam out, we can certainly swim in. I hoped there were no un noticed currents. We sit and chill a minute, I give him the flag buoy to hang on to, I grab the back of his bc and we slowly start our return laying on our backs and kicking in together. After we get within a couple hundred yards of shore, he's doing better now and he decides he'll roll over and use his snorkel and swim in. So I put my reg back in and follow. Just after this, something wraps around my fin....a long piece of yellow nylon line. Really...can anything else happen? I reach down to de tangle and pull in the line. There was like 50 foot of it. Now I look up and buddy is nowhere to be found. Buddy separation, 4th mistake. I continue in when I see him 200 yards out and 100 or so yards south of the exit point. He sees me and we finally make it out.... whew! So I listed what I think are the 4 big things I screwed up but I could probably add several more like, over confidence in ability, lack of dive planning, lack of knowing the area, (thank God we didn't have currents), helping to put a new diver in a really bad spot...and probably a bunch of others you guys will point out.
So anyway...dumb, really dumb. Been chewing my own ass for over a year now. My takeaway is that will never happen again, and it pushed me right into navigation class. All the things discussed on SB are so true. The compounding of mistakes is very real. Don't be a dummy like me that day.
We were shore diving in Hawaii. A site I had dove multiple times before with a DM. My buddy had not dove there before, and he was a less experienced diver than me. I think I had 50 something dives at the time. When we arrived, the weather was not the greatest. A little storm had blown in bringing rain and some chop. We stood and looked over the site and didn't feel great about conditions, but as it was the last opportunity to dive during this vacation, we decided to go ahead. 1st mistake. We entered the water planning on a backwards c pattern roughly following the coast line. The same thing I had done multiple times with a local DM. The water here is shallow, 30 ft max, most at about 20ft. We'd go out to the end of the c and look around for a while till one of us hit 1500 psi then return. As I was familiar with the terrain, I didn't set my compass. 2nd mistake. So out we go, dive was eehh. With the chop that had kicked up and no sun, visibility was not the best. But we carried on. Third mistake. So now my buddy signals he's at 1500 so we start the return. We swim on for a while and things are not looking familiar anymore, the visibility hampering things. I signal to him that we'll go up and look around. I'm now at 1500 and he's nearing 900. When we surface we get a little surprise....we're a full par 4 maybe 5 off shore and now the weather has turned really chitty. Driving rain and heavy chop. At this point my buddy starts to panic, his legs start cramping and says he can't swim back in. I make sure he's filled his bc and talk him off the ledge a bit. I figured we swam out, we can certainly swim in. I hoped there were no un noticed currents. We sit and chill a minute, I give him the flag buoy to hang on to, I grab the back of his bc and we slowly start our return laying on our backs and kicking in together. After we get within a couple hundred yards of shore, he's doing better now and he decides he'll roll over and use his snorkel and swim in. So I put my reg back in and follow. Just after this, something wraps around my fin....a long piece of yellow nylon line. Really...can anything else happen? I reach down to de tangle and pull in the line. There was like 50 foot of it. Now I look up and buddy is nowhere to be found. Buddy separation, 4th mistake. I continue in when I see him 200 yards out and 100 or so yards south of the exit point. He sees me and we finally make it out.... whew! So I listed what I think are the 4 big things I screwed up but I could probably add several more like, over confidence in ability, lack of dive planning, lack of knowing the area, (thank God we didn't have currents), helping to put a new diver in a really bad spot...and probably a bunch of others you guys will point out.
So anyway...dumb, really dumb. Been chewing my own ass for over a year now. My takeaway is that will never happen again, and it pushed me right into navigation class. All the things discussed on SB are so true. The compounding of mistakes is very real. Don't be a dummy like me that day.
